Police Reject Partnership With Guardian Angels

San Diego Police Department officials refused Monday to form a partnership with the Guardian Angels and told group members that they will be arrested if they continue to conduct illegal operations.

Authorities had agreed to meet with Guardian Angels representatives after six members were detained by police late Thursday night and cited for misdemeanor battery and false imprisonment after they attempted to place two men under citizen’s arrest. But the two men, Melvin Jackson and Thomas Criner, eventually placed the Angels under citizen’s arrest, police said. The Angels were taken into police custody for several hours, cited and ordered to appear in court May 16.

The Angels presented the police with a “partnership against crime” plan Monday, asking the department to recognize and support them as an independent citizen group.

Two items in the Angels’ five-item proposal, including the possibility of creating a police liaison, will be reviewed, said Cmdr. Larry Gore, head of the Police Department’s public affairs unit, in a news conference after the meeting. But a partnership with the Angels will not be established because the proposal calls for illegal or inappropriate actions.

For example, the Angels want police to conduct background checks on Angels applicants, Gore said, adding that such activity is illegal. The Angels also asked for some training. If that request were granted, the Police Department could be held liable for the Angels’ actions, Gore said.

In a separate news conference, Weston Conwell, the Angels’ regional director, said, “We’re not asking for cars or radios, we just want the police to appoint a liaison to work with us and let us attend police lineups and sensitivity meetings so that officers who arrive on the scene will know who we are.”

The Angels are just a citizens patrol group with the same rights and responsibilities as any other citizen, Gore said, and, if they exceed those rights, they will be arrested. They have to abide by our laws.

“They want official sanction by the San Diego Police Department,” Gore said. “We do recognize them. Weston came with an agenda, and, when he didn’t get what he wanted, he wasn’t satisfied with the meeting.”